Shelley: The Pursuit
A Review of Richard Holmes' Award-winning Biography of Percy Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley's short chaotic life is brilliantly told by biographer Richard Holmes.
Introduction
The life of England's greatest poet Percy Bysshe Shelley is brought vividly to life by biographer Richard Holmes. This prize-winning biography - Somerset Maugham Prize (1974) is perhaps the greatest of Shelley biographies. Holmes' lucid style helps revise the life of Shelley yet still maintains a certain amount of objectivity towards him.
Shelley: The Pursuit is a most apt title as this is indeed a biography that goes on the chase to bring together all manner of opinions; both contemporary and historical to weave together the short chaotic life of the poet.
The Short Life of Percy Shelley
Born in Sussex, England in 1792 and dead twenty-nine years later in 1822, just one month shy of his thirtieth birthday - Percy Shelley's life was event-filled to say the least. Educated at the world's finest educational establishments: Eton College and Oxford University, Shelley's intellectual abilities were way ahead of accepted thought - often leading him into trouble on more than one occasion.
Although an aristocrat by virtue of birth, Shelley spent his life as a political radical and this is what Richard Holmes so luminously discusses and exposes in his book. Far from the image of an effete poet - Shelley was a radical political-poet setting out to engage the masses...at least this was Shelley's plans. Holmes notes time and time again, the run-ins with the authorities and the upper middle classes that controlled the government. That he was of such high birth and yet politically radical and an atheist, horrified his family, friends and fellow poets.
The Exile
Throughout his life, Shelley was exiled both spiritually and physically from his homeland of England. Holmes' humorous asides and storytelling abilities really bring to life some very amusing and terrifying episodes in Shelley's life - from releasing a pamphlet on atheism in his university days to fistfights in a post office in Rome.
The peripatetic lifestyle of Shelley takes in adventures in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Switzerland and Italy with much gusto and is often beautifully descriptive. Holmes uses many varying forms of correspondence that has survived down the years - from Shelley’s notebooks and letters to the close circle around him.
Controversy in Shelley's Life
Throughout his life Percy Shelley was often stopped from being published due to the volatile and potentially revolution-provoking nature of his poems. Holmes’ biography notes in fine detail the inspirations and developments of Queen Mab, The Mask of Anarchy and The Revolt of Islam.
Another aspect richly described is Shelley’s very complicated love life. He married a sixteen year old girl who was considered lower class by his parents, only for Shelley to abandon her two years later for the love of his life Mary Godwin. This grand love however did not stop Shelley from having numerous dalliances with Mary Shelley’s sister or their children’s nanny.
Richard Holmes’ epic book - at 830 pages is triumph of literary biography. The life and times of Percy Bssyhe Shelley is often funny, sad and very interesting. Holmes’ biography truly draws out and re-assesses Shelley’s intellectual and philosophical stances.
Summary
The salient fact remains that Shelley’s death from drowning off the coast of Tuscany in 1822 robbed the world of an immensely talented artist and yet cemented his power and reputation as England’s finest poet. Published by Harper Perennial in paperback, it is a fantastic example of the abilities of the literary biography.
